“My brother, my friend, have I found you too?” she said at last; “I do not know if it is a dream, but so many events have succeeded one another! Just now Edouard was with me.”
“Edouard! Come to yourself, be calm, my dear Adeline, and have no fear; the brigands are punished.”
Adeline made no reply but her eyes still sought her husband.
“Victory!” cried Sans-Souci; “I killed two of them, for my part.”
“We owe you our lives, gallant strangers,” said Monsieur Gerval, approaching Jacques; “how can I ever pay my debt to you?”
“You have evidently taken care of my sister and my niece,” Jacques answered the old man, “and I am still in your debt.”
“His sister! his niece!” exclaimed the good man and his servants.
“First of all, let us finish inspecting the house,” said Sans-Souci; “there may be some more of the scoundrels hidden in some corner.”
“But Dupré doesn’t appear! I am terribly afraid that he has fallen a victim to his zeal.”
“Let us put our friends in a place of safety, and go and look!”